A nasty self-seeking ambition

cassandra cry: A woman's quizzical view of the past week

August 24, 2018, 10:06 am 

Ambition is but avarice on stilts, but masked noted Walter Savage Landor and Shakespeare - Vaulting ambition, which o'erleaps itself/ And falls on the other.

Insatiable ambition

Among many despicable characteristic of ours – Sri Lankan, mostly Sinhalese – one is nasty, self seeking ambition. It is rampant. Consider the run-of-the-mill politician, the private bus owner, GMOA office bearers. It’s ambition that drives them. Ambition for what? MONEY, and in the first case power too.

It is ambition of the crudest kind that is driving the latest Talk of the Town – the run for a third-term presidency for Mahinda Rajapaksa. As is usual with the JO, the protagonist himself is silent; it is his cohorts and golayas who are shouting on his behalf. The one believing he holds the crystal ball and all knowledge on laws – GLP - is the weightiest. He pontificates, equivocates, quibbles with words in both English and now Sinhala and his latest pontificated, equivocated pronouncement is that the 19th A does not preclude the two previous Presidents, MR and CBK, from contesting the 2020 presidential elections. He said so at the Nelum Mawatha (first time heard name of a road) office of the former Prez on 20 August. He had beside him (probably comparable to companions on adjacent crosses with all apologies to Christians) Kalutara PC member Renuka Gamage and Rohitha Abeygunawardena (what company to keep!). Fortunately, the final arbiter is the Supreme Court of the Democratic etc Republic of Sri Lanka.

It is ambition and nothing but personal ambition that drives GLP and all others, masked of course as the first quote above notes, as patriotism and to serve the people and the nation. That, meaning personal ambition, is MR’s driving force to be back again in power; one perk being the ability to save so many from just punishment. The others who shout for him are also driven by personal greed for power, perks and a forgetting/burying of past sins. But they must take note of the Bard: you could be driven by ambition but it may push too hard so you land on your nose or bottom hard and nasty. One cannot think of MR falling thus, too cushioned to feel pain but maybe things in the courts opened recently can work to give pain.

Public places neglected

Cassandra attended an event at the Western Province Aesthetic Resort down Wijesundera Mawatha constructed not so many years ago. The building and its vicinity are far from aesthetic and it certainly is not a resort. It is unkempt and of its toilets one near the entrance and closest to the staircase that led up to the meeting hall upstairs was closed. The other was barely usable with a door that could not be locked. A visitor to the Resort would shrug shoulders and murmur, well, what more to expect when we are a poor third world country. But ire rose high considering that the mayor of Colombo spent millions on refurbishing toilets in her official residence, probably used only by her. The Western Province was, Cassandra believes, deterred from spending millions to cushion-seat their councillors’ behinds. However, they may still get those luxury chairs once the hue and cry dies down as it seemed to have been the case with Rosy’s toilet (mis)adventure. The public shouted, other matters arose and lo and behold the ex Mrs World goes and gets her way like she demanded and got bees honey imported from Down Under for the Diyawanne breakfast tables. Curse her appetite and her luxury demanding bottom!! Avarice, which is close companion to ambition, also causes a fall on the other side!

Welikada women climbers

Certain women incarcerated for this, that and the other crime and imprisoned at the Welikada jailhouse have shown an additional prowess to their many abilities. They are now climbers, not of mountains but of roofs. The last time they scaled up the prison roof was citing human rights violations. Minister of Justice, Thalata A had the grace to hold discussions with them. But their climbing limbs itched and so they were back to their favourits sport, this time protesting the transfer of a female jailor. It is such a disgrace which calls for hanging our collective heads in shame seeing these women behaving thus when they should be repenting their evil doings and rehabilitating themselves. Here they are again making a display of themselves.

Joke of the week

I quote verbatim a Wednesday 21 newspaper item as the start of the dark humour propagated by self styled HRH Gemunu somebody-or-other with the statement he imperiously made. "The Lanka Private Bus Operators Association (LPBOA) yesterday warned that unless the government restricted the import of tri-shaws, motorcycles and other vehicles they would be forced to suspend bus services in Colombo." The height of cheek, Cass mutters. Who are they to lay down terms and conditions to the government and what a term and condition they lay therein! I suppose careening on highways and screeching on byways and knocking down people and causing traffic jams and being a menace to other vehicles is not enough fun for their drivers. They want to kill en masse and also rule the road roost. Powers-that-be, please turn a blind ear to their threat and a blind eye if they do strike work. Reinforce CTB buses and also get the army to man transport until the LPBOA big wigs face grumbles and grouses escalating to death threats themselves from striking and consequently empty stomached bus crews. This is the sort of humour we are privy to these days – the dark somber kind.

A spot of brightness

A news clip on Tuesday 21 August announced that Gayantha Karunatilleke, Minister and Cabinet co-spokesman, turned 56 on that day. Congratulations and best wishes to a Member of Parliament and Minister of State who deserves all the respect he gets. He stands out among his colleagues as honourable, decent (very much so) and surely incorruptible. He is a gentleman among, sorry to say, thieves and rough thugs and uncouth speakers. One wonders how such as he and a few others manage in that House by the Diyawanne that has earned some horrible names which Cass is too genteel to mention here, similar to or even worse than the sobriquet that Trump used on third world countries. Gayantha K is a gentleman. This Cass knows for certain coz at a function an older lady could not climb a couple of steps to the stage. She stood there wondering what to do when Honourbale Gayantha K came forward, helped her up, and then was ready to help her descend. When later she thanked him, he said graciously it was nothing; he was always ready to assist. He is a pleasure to listen to at Cabinet meetings with the media, a quiet dignified presence, a bit different to loquacious Spokesman Rajitha Senaratna.

And thus this week’s report ending on a high note with gladness of political success of a person in his fifties; young compared to the grey ones in Parliament.

Cassandra